


Time and Love

by lwise2019



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:28:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27483502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lwise2019/pseuds/lwise2019
Summary: A short story covering Knud's recovery from the mugging described in "A Dagger Undrawn".
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6





	Time and Love

**May, Year 80**

“We're going to have to send you out, Knud,” Doctor Elísabet told him. “We've kept you in the clinic for as long as we can, but you're recovered enough …”

Her voice trailed off, as he closed his eyes in dismay. He wouldn't argue, of course. He _couldn't_ argue when just stringing three words together was an effort.

“Mikkel has arranged to send you home,” she continued. Mikkel stood beside and a little behind her, his face rigidly controlled.

Knud's eyes reopened, widened. “Can't. No —” He stared at Mikkel, hoping that his cousin, another soldier, would understand the thought that his damaged brain could not express.

Mikkel glanced at Elísabet, stepped forward. “You can, Knud. You must. You … you can't stay here forever.” He didn't meet Knud's eyes as he said it.

Karitas, the healing mage, the remaining person in the room, stepped forward as well to address him. “You're still recovering, Knud. The magic is slow, but it _is_ working and it will continue to work until you're well. We're going to send the headband with you,” she glanced at Elísabet with a rather conspiratorial expression, “because Elísabet wants to study how well it works away from Iceland. You'll just let us know how you're doing, every so often. The headband will keep healing you. It will, Knud. I promise.” They'd put the headband, a broad black headband woven with red and white runes, on him as soon as he arrived at the clinic, believing it to hold magic capable of healing a head injury.

The eyes of the mage were kind and encouraging, but Knud looked away from her, gazing at his cousin. Mikkel was staring at his own feet, and his control failed briefly as she spoke, allowing Knud to see the grief that hid behind his impassive mask.

In a way, Knud thought, that made it better. These Icelanders could fantasize about their magic headband, but Danes knew how things really were. Mikkel was a trained medic; if he was grieving, if he thought there was no chance, then there really was no chance. So Petrine would only have to care for him for a while, only until she understood and believed, and then … well, and then arrangements would be made. He would not be forced to suffer in his helpless body forever.

That thought carried him through as Mikkel took him away in a wheelchair and delivered him to Anna — he never got her full name — the nurse his cousin had hired. She accompanied him on the ship to Bornholm and through quarantine, finally passing him on to his cousin Alfred, kind, quiet Alfred, who brought him back to his home and his wife, Petrine. 

**July, Year 80**

“It's all right, Knud. It's all right. It's only a plate. Don't, don't, please don't cry.”

Knud turned his head away. He hated to distress his wife with tears, hated the weakness that made him unable to stop weeping.

“Mama?” That was one of their sons, though he couldn't tell which by the voice. He couldn't even tell them apart by looking at them, something else he'd lost.

“Run and play, Karl. Mama's busy right now.”

“Is Papa all right?”

“Papa's sick. He'll be okay. You run and play now.” He heard the child leave without further questions; for all Petrine tried to protect them, the children, poor toddlers, couldn't help but know that something was terribly wrong with their father. And that was another source of grief.

Kneeling beside her husband as he huddled miserably in a corner, hugging him, trying to soothe him, Petrine paused in stroking his hair. “Where's the headband, dear heart?”

“Over — over there.” The words came out slurred. “Doesn't work.” He had thrown it aside in frustration.

“It does work, beloved.” She released him, and he was alone.

Alone, weak, helpless, damaged … alone.

She was back, her gentle hands putting the headband on him and then her warm and loving arms embracing him.

“It does work,” she murmured again. “You're walking without the walker now.”

And that was true. Helpless as he'd been when Alfred brought him home, slowly, oh so slowly, he'd begun to recover. At first he'd needed one of his strong cousins to support him while he struggled to walk a few steps; then Alfred had brought him a walker, a relic from before the Great Dying; and now he could walk alone. He could dress himself, finally, though Petrine had to help him with the laces, because he couldn't seem to get the motions in the right order to tie knots. And he'd even begun to help her with the children and with the housework, except his clumsy hands had dropped a dish, and it had shattered …

“Should be dead.” He wished that he had died at Kastrup, with so many others, or that the mugger had crushed his skull and killed him outright.

“No, no, no, Knud, no. Never.”

“Useless. Burden.”

“No, dear heart, no. I love you. You're my man, my love, the father of my children. You're … you're … you're my only love.” She was crying too now, hugging him tight. “We'll work it out, dearest. Even if … even if it doesn't get better, you're still my love, my Knud. You always will be.” They held each other while he wept helplessly for what was lost, for his damaged brain, for all those who had died at Kastrup, for the world that had been so beautiful and was now the haunt of monsters.

When there were no more tears, Petrine led him to bed and sat beside him, softly singing a lullaby as he slept. The runes on the headband glimmered in the candlelight.

**September, Year 80**

“I'd like to help with the horses.” The words came easily.

Alfred glanced at him, turned to his right, and whistled. Knud was grateful that his older cousin hadn't looked at him skeptically, or pityingly, or in any of the other painful ways the family tended to look at him.

As young Theodor trotted out of the stable in response to the whistle, Alfred instructed, “Go see your mother for a new assignment. Knud will be handling the horses.”

“Okay!” The boy gave Knud an encouraging smile and dashed off before the other could compose his face into an appropriate expression. It was just as well. He hated the fact that even children felt the need to encourage him in his little achievements.

Theodor would be assigned a new job and Knud would tend the horses, because Theodor, and the other children, could remember instructions, could perform tasks without supervision, and Knud … could not. His tasks in dealing with the horses would be limited to mucking out stalls, bringing in feed, and occasionally currying the animals. He could handle that, and at least he was doing something useful.

**December, Year 80**

Knud picked up the headband, about to don it again, and paused, frowning. “Petrine?”

“Yes, dear heart?” She was mending Konrad's shirt, which he had somehow managed to rip without even leaving the house.

“I am … I think I am … whole.” He looked at her with worry, afraid that he was too damaged to realize that he was still damaged.

Petrine lowered the mending, gazing at him with shining eyes. “I think so too. I've thought so for a couple of weeks. But _you_ have to feel it.” She pushed her work away, came to his side, hugged him fiercely.

Nine months later, their daughter Freja was born. But that is another story.


End file.
